Form No. 10-300 ^ \Q~' UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES INVENTORY - NOMINATION FORM

SEE INSTRUCTIONS IN HOW TO COMPLETE NATIONAL REGISTER FORMS ______TYPE ALL ENTRIES -- COMPLETE APPLICABLE SECTIONS______I NAME HISTORIC ( David L. Brown1 House AND/OR COMMON

LOCATION

STREET & NUMBER

200 East Washington Street —NOT FOR PUBLICATION CITY, TOWN CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICT Kosciusko _ VICINITY OF Second STATE CODE COUNTY CODE Mississippi 28 Attala 007 UCLA SSIFI c ATI ON

CATEGORY OWNERSHIP STATUS PRESENT USE _ DISTRICT _ PUBLIC 2LOCCUPIED _AGRICULTURE —MUSEUM X_BUILDING(S) ^PRIVATE —UNOCCUPIED —COMMERCIAL —PARK —STRUCTURE —BOTH —WORK IN PROGRESS —EDUCATIONAL J?PRIVATE RESIDENCE —SITE PUBLIC ACQUISITION ACCESSIBLE —ENTERTAINMENT —RELIGIOUS —OBJECT _IN PROCESS X_YES: RESTRICTED —GOVERNMENT —SCIENTIFIC —BEING CONSIDERED — YES: UNRESTRICTED —INDUSTRIAL —TRANSPORTATION _NO —MILITARY —OTHER:

STREET & NUMBER Merchant and Farmer's Bank CITY. TOWN STATE Kosciusko VICINITY OF Mississippi LOCATION OF LEGAL DESCRIPTION

COURTHOUSE. REGISTRY OF DEEDSvETc. Attala County Courthouse STREET & NUMBER

CITY. TOWN STATE Kosciusko Mississippi

TITLE

DATE —FEDERAL —STATE —COUNTY _LOCAL

DEPOSITORY FOR SURVEY RECORDS

CITY. TOWN STATE DESCRIPTION

CONDITION CHECK ONE CHECK ONE

^-EXCELLENT _DETERIORATED ^-UNALTERED X.ORIGINALSITE _GOOD _RUINS _ALTERED __MOVED DATE_ _FAIR _UNEXPOSED

DESCRIBE THE PRESENT AND ORIGINAL (IF KNOWN) PHYSICAL APPEARANCE The David L. Brown House is a two-story frame residence which faces south on East Washington Street in the heart of Kosciusko, the county seat of Attala County, Mississippi. The white house stands on a brick pier foundation at the front of a spacious corner site which extends the full depth (297 feet) of a city block and encompasses several original outbuildings and landscape features. Constructed in 1900, the house features the irregular massing and variety of surface treatment typical of the Queen Anne style of architecture. The two- tiered facade gallery is capped at the southeast corner by a round shingled turret with bracketed eaves. A gable with a keyhole window projects over a two-story bay window at the west end, and similar gables with the same keyhole window break the roofline on the east and west elevations. Rising asymmetrically from the east and west slopes of the roof are two brick chimneys with ornamental caps. The main entrance and a corresponding second-story door are set on the center axis of the three-bay facade beyond the turned wooden posts and balusters of the gallery railings. A secondary porch extends around the northwest corner of the house along the rear (north) and west elevations, serving back, side, and kitchen entrances. The irregularity of the exterior massing is reflected in the asymmetrical arrangement of the David L. Brown House interior. The first floor plan features an entrance hall which widens beyond curved corners into a fifteen-foot-wide stair hall that forms a central core, around which are grouped a "Parlor," "Sitting Room," "Dining Room," "Kitchen," back "Hall," "Bath Room," "Children's Room," and "Family Room" (see original first-floor plan, ;; M. E. Parmelee, architect). The woodwork in the stair hall is of oak, and the square staircase rises to the west along the back (north) wall. On the second floor, three bedrooms and a bathroom flank the hall. Throughout the house are plastered walls and tongue-in-groove pine flooring. Classically decorated oak mantels with tile hearths ornament all major rooms, and the original louvred interior blinds are still in use in three first-floor rooms and the master bedroom. A complete collection of documents related to the design and construction of the David L. Brown House verifies how little the building has been altered since 1900. The original shingle roof was replaced with asphalt shingles in 1925, and additional closet space was built into the upstairs hall in 1938 when a second-floor balcony was being enclosed for a bathroom. Since that time no structural changes have been made. The original one-over-one double-hung sash windows, with a few exceptions, survive throughout the house; most original hard­ ware is still in use; and all original doors, most notably the eleven-panel sliding doors which open from the dining room onto the stair hall, are still in place. When the David L. Brown House was built, the small Greek Revival cottage that had been the home of Judge Jason Niles was moved from the site to the rear of the new house and appears in old photographs as a service structure for the larger and more modern building. The cottage was moved again, in 1905, to 300 North Huntington Street in Kosciusko, where it has been enlarged and remodeled to serve as the home of Mr. and Mrs. George Thornton. An old brick cellar under the kitchen of the Brown House appears to survive from the late-1840s period of the earlier house; the well and well house, several patterned brick walks, and a small smokehouse (later coal house) structure now attached to a twentieth 01 SIGNIFICANCE

PERIOD AREAS OF SIGNIFICANCE - CHECK AND JUSTIFY BELOW

—PREHISTORIC _ARCHEOLOGY-PREHISTORIC _COMMUNITY PLANNING —LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE —RELIGION —1400-1499 —ARCHEOLOGY-HISTORIC —CONSERVATION —LAW —SCIENCE —1500-1599 _AGRICULTURE —ECONOMICS —LITERATURE —SCULPTURE _1600-1699 ^.ARCHITECTURE —EDUCATION _MILITARY _SOCIAL/HUMANITARIAN — 1700-1799 _ART —ENGINEERING _MUSIC —THEATER J?1 800-1899 —COMMERCE X_EXPLORATION/SETTLEMENT —PHILOSOPHY —TRANSPORTATION _X1900- —COMMUNICATIONS —INDUSTRY ^POLITICS/GOVERNMENT —OTHER (SPECIFY) —INVENTION

BUILDER/ARCHITECT SPECIFIC DATES 1900 M. E. Parmelee STATEMENT OF SIGNIFICANCE

The David L. Brown House in Kosciusko, Mississippi, is a well-preserved and thoroughly documented example of the Queen Anne style of architecture that was popular with the prominent citizens of growing Mississippi communities at the turn of the century. The property on which the house stands is significant in the history of Kosciusko as the site chosen for a homestead by Jason Niles (1814-1894), a prominent settler and political figure of nineteenth century Kosciusko. Built by Niles's daughter and son-in-law, and still in the possession of Niles descendants, the David L. Brown House represents almost literally the conscious transition of a family and a community from the pioneer era of the nineteenth century to the aura of established prosperity which ushered in the twentieth. Constructed in 1900 for David Lockett Brown and Virginia Niles Brown, the Brown House was designed by architect M. E. Parmelee of Knoxville, Tennessee. The original blueprints and specifications for the structure are still in the house, and copies of these documents are in the collections of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History. They provide a rare opportunity for insight into domestic architectural taste in turn-of-the-century Mississippi. When com­ pared with the house as it stands today, the plans and specifications also verify that the structure has been altered very little and can itself serve as a cultural document. David Lockett Brown was a successful hardware merchant in Kosciusko, which was described in 1890 as "the commercial metropolis of central Mississippi" (Goodspeed 1:233). In 1889 he married Virginia Niles, the youngest child of Jason and Harriet Niles. Judge and Mrs. Niles gave their Kosciusko homesite to the couple as a wedding present, and in 1899 David and Virginia Brown engaged the services of Martin E. Parmelee to design a new house for the site. The residence was completed in time for a Thanksgiving dinner there in 1900 (Mrs. Lester L. Brown, 1976). When David L. Brown died in 1936, ownership of the property passed to Mr. and Mrs. Lester Lockett Brown, his son and daughter-in-law. Mrs. Lester L. Brown still occupies the house. Although he died before the David L. Brown House was constructed, the name of Jason Adams Niles is still very much associated with the Brown property and with the town of Kosciusko. A native of Canada educated in Vermont, Niles taught school in Massachusetts, Ohio, and Tennessee between 1838 and 1848. In August, 1847, he married Harriet McRee of Shelbyville, Tennessee, and in July, 1848, the couple moved to Kosciusko, Mississippi, a growing town established on the Natchez Trace in 1834. Niles was admitted to the bar in 1851 and practiced JMAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES Brown, Mrs. Lester L. Kosciusko, Mississippi. Personal interviews with Elizabeth P. Reynolds, 1975 and 1976. Goodspeed Publishing Company. Goodspeed*s Biographical and Historical Memoirs of Mississippi. 2 vols. Chicago: Goodspeed Publishing Company, 1890.

ACREAGE OF NOMINATED PROPERTYslightly PlOTf* than one UTM REFERENCES

2K 8|3. 2.0J |3. 6[ 6,016.0, 0| B I.I J_I EASTING NORTHING ZONE EASTING NORTHING I I . I i , I I . I . I , . I Pi . | I I . I « . 1 1.1,1,, VERBAL BOUNDARY DESCRIPTION Lots 21, 24, and a parcel of land 15 feet wide east and west by 149 feet north and south off the entire west side of Lot No. 23, of the city of Kosciusko, according to Mercer's Map of said city, dated 1900. The property is bounded on the south side by East Wash­ ington Street, on the west side by Natchez Street, on the north by Adams Street, and on the east side by the property of the U.S. Post Office.

LIST ALL STATES AND COUNTIES FOR PROPERTIES OVERLAPPING STATE OR COUNTY BOUNDARIES

STATE CODE COUNTY CODE

STATE CODE COUNTY CODE

F ORM PREPARED BY NAME/TITLE Elizabeth P. Reynolds, Architectural Historian ORGANIZATION DATE Mississippi Department of Archives and History April, 1977 STREET& NUMBER TELEPHONE P. 0. Box 571 (601) 354-6218 CITY OR TOWN STATE Jackson Mississippi ISTATE HISTORIC PRESERVATION OFFICER CERTIFICATION THE EVALUATED SIGNIFICANCE OF THIS PROPERTY WITHIN THE STATE IS:

NATIONAL __ STATE___ LOCAL _X__

As the designated State Historic Preservation Officer for the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966 (Public Law 89-665), I hereby nominate this property for inclusion in the National Register and certify that it has been evaluated according to the criteria and procedures set forth by the National Park Service.

STATE HISTORIC PRESERVATION OFFICER SIGNATURE

TITLE State Historic Preservation Officer DATE May n> 1977

GPO 892-/1R3 Form No. 1£)-300a (Hev. 10-74) UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE 81977 NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES INVENTORY - NOMINATION FORM D£C ..? • -1977

CONTINUATION SHEET _____ ITEM NUMBER 7 & 8 PAGE 1

7 - DESCRIPTION

century barn, all survive from the Niles homestead. The barn was constructed about 1930, and a garage behind the house was built by the current owners in 1940. The Brown House property survives in relatively unspoiled condition and is well cared for by the current owner. However, its setting appears to be threatened by commercial encroachment and a municipal urban renewal effort which does not display a sympathetic attitude toward the historic residential properties that lie within the commercial center of Kosciusko.

8 - SIGNIFICANCE

law intermittently thereafter. He was editor of the Kosciusko Chronicle, 1851- 1853; served as a delegate to the state constitutional conventions of 1851, 1865, and 1872; was a member of the state house of representatives in 1870; served as a circuit court judge in 1871 and 1872; and served one term as a Republican representative to the U.S. Congress, 1873-1875. Niles died in Kosciusko in 1894, and in 1911 his children gave the land for Jason Niles Park to the city of Kosciusko as a lasting memorial to their father. When they moved to Kosciusko in 1848, Jason and Harriet Niles settled on the property now occupied by the David L. Brown House, reportedly because of a spring that still feeds the well Niles dug on the site. From the one extant photograph that pictures the Niles House, it appears to have been a typically modest Greek Revival cottage which originally faced west. On November 16, 1855, Jason Niles recorded in his diary that "Rosamond (John) and King [are] at work on the house, our new house just commenced" (Niles Diary, v. 15, pp. 174-175). This "new house just commenced" in 1855 was the dwelling that was standing on the Niles/Brown property when plans were begun for a new house in 1899. At that time, the Niles House was preserved and moved to a new foundation facing south behind the Brown House. In 1905, Henry Niles, a brother of Virginia Niles Brown, relocated their father's house to its present situation on North Huntington Street, where it served as his law office and still survives as a private residence (see physical description). The same family sensitivity which twice preserved the Niles House for con­ tinued use has fostered a thorough respect for the historical significance of the Niles/Brown property and the architectural integrity of the David L. Brown House. The several original outbuildings and landscape features which remain from the Niles homestead (see physical description) contribute historical per­ spective to the Brown House, which is itself a valuable architectural and his­ torical resource. Form No. 10-300a (Rev. 10-74) UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR NATIONAL PARK SERVICE

NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES INVENTORY -- NOMINATION FORM

CONTINUATION SHEET______ITEM NUMBER 9_____PAGE 2______

9 - MAJOR BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson. Architectural Records. David L. Brown House, Kosciusko. Photostatic copies of original blueprints and specifications by M. E. Parmelee, architect, 1900. Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson. Historic Sites Survey File, Attala County. "David L. Brown House." Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Jackson. Niles (Jason) Diary, vols. 15, 19. Microfilm.

GPO 892 455